“I’m one of the smart Black Republicans,” he said, leaning forward and adjusting his glasses.

“Are you saying the others aren’t smart?” I asked with an awkward chuckle, trying to parse the layers of what he’d just told me.

“No, they aren’t,” he said, digging in.

He had invited himself to the seat next to me, and then into this conversation. We were in a hallway at the Congressional Black Caucus conference, and I’d been buried in my phone, editing a social video I’d filmed the day before. He’d come down from Philly. In a sea of Democrats, calling himself a Republican certainly made him stand out.

“I’m retired now, but I spent more than 20 years working in energy policy,” he said, before walking me through the rest of his résumé.

“So what should I know?” I asked, playing along.

For the next 15 minutes, he explained things I’d already come to understand pretty well from covering data centers: the tangled web of energy policy, and how confused people are about who the players in it actually are. When I kept up, sometimes finishing his facts before he could, his eyes brightened.

“Oh, so you do know something about this.”

“Not as much as you do,” I said, still fiddling with my edits.

Then he leaned in and said something that made me put my phone down and look him in the eye.

“Everyone keeps talking about AI data centers using energy, but nobody seems to be planning for the energy cryptocurrency uses.”

“What do you mean?”

Share

The country needs data centers to reach the next frontier, he told me. He didn’t understand why people complained about rising energy costs. To him, it was like complaining about the price of fancy shoes or a designer bag, something expensive you’d chosen to buy. And data centers weren’t the only thing the energy people he’d worked with in government were watching. Cryptocurrency devours electricity too, he said, and together the two would come with a steep price. In his view, it was one the public should be willing to pay.

That’s when I told him about last winter, about the people who put several layers of clothing on while inside their homes, trying to stay warm without turning up the thermostat. For some people, affording heat in January or cool air in July is a matter of life and death.

I could see him picturing scenarios in his mind he hadn’t considered before. He adjusted his glasses and shifted uncomfortably.

Later, I checked what he’d told me. I sat in on a session about cryptocurrency and realized this was something people were actively studying, and the projections were staggering. He wasn’t wrong that it’s worth watching. A peer-reviewed study published in May by researchers at North Carolina State, Carnegie Mellon and two other universities projects that demand from data centers and crypto mining could push power costs up by as much as 57% in some parts of the country by 2030. Maryland and Pennsylvania are among the places where those increases would be sharpest. That’s the state I cover and the one he’d come from.

He was smart. He’d made sure I knew that.

Leave a comment

Updates!

I’m only on the 20th draft of my book proposal. It’s 95 pages, so I feel like I’ve already written the book. I have a great agent who has represented journalists with much bigger followings than mine, and she took me on I believe because this story is amazing! I’ll share more as it progresses.

Next week, I’m joining journalists from around the world to teach a masterclass on AI, Journalism and Society at the University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute. I’ll be focused specifically on covering the resistance to AI data centers in the United States.

So far, I’ve really enjoyed writing Worth Mentioning. It’s fun to share parts of conversations that don’t make it into stories but are still worth discussing. Let me know what you think. I read everything.

Subscribe now

Subscribe and Share

If this is the kind of stuff you want more of, subscribe. I'm going deeper on this. And if you know someone who should be paying attention to this, send it to them. Or maybe you just want to make a one-time donation to keep this Substack alive.

Share

Follow me on TikTok!

Follow me on Instagram too!

And here is my LinkedIn.

Order a signed copy of my sci-fi novel The Herd- When Democracy Falls.

And remember,…

“We get accusations of being shills for the developer. We get all sorts of accusations.”

He watches me as he says it, relaxed, but still choosing his words carefully.

His home is a quaint single story on a good amount of land, the kind of place that suits someone who loves the Earth. His windows are full of colorful recycled glass he’s turned into art pieces. Trash, now reflecting light.

This was our third conversation. The first two were accidents. I stopped him while covering a “No Kings” protest in Montgomery County, Maryland. In the industry we call that a “man on the street,” where you stop people at random and ask how they feel about an event. The region I cover is overrun with people who lean left. But by that point, even the politically neutral were organizing, as the Trump administration indiscriminately slashed their jobs and their neighbors’ jobs.

The third time we met on purpose, to discuss how the organization he leads in Maryland, the Sierra Club, is trying to evolve environmental politics, which at this point is pretty well fused with progressive coalitions.

“It is not uncommon that Sierra Club or other similar groups will talk about how a politician is bought off because they took money from a developer,” he says. “And we’ve had conversations with people saying, developers build housing. Unless you’re building the house yourself, all housing is built by developers. So we cannot discount a person and an entire policy because it’s supported by the industry that builds houses.”

“I’m glad there are pro-clean energy businesses out there figuring out how to make a profit off of something that’s good for the planet,” he continues.

He is not wrong about the bad words of the left.

Covering politics in this region, as progressive groups take the main stage, I hear it constantly. The antagonist is “developers.” Or people just looking for “profit.” I’ve sat with politicians on and off the record trying to understand how they reconcile it. They want jobs, housing, growth. Many court developers to get those things while using rhetoric that casts developers as the villains of their worldview. It’s an interesting dance to watch.

But the larger question he’s asking is about reconciling altruism with business. In capitalist America, can you — or better yet, should you be able to — protect the environment while making money doing it?

It isn’t only the environmental community asking.

Share

In my world, Kara Swisher took heat on the podcast Mixed Signals by Semafor for profiting from journalism. She is transparent about the millions she’s made from podcast deals, live events and the rest of her brand. The critique, roughly: you cannot spend a career holding the tech industry to account while getting rich in its orbit. The money is the compromise. The money is a tell.

And this is not only a tension on the left. On the right, “elite” gets swung by politicians who went to Yale.

Some of it, I imagine, comes from how wealth has stratified in the United States. A K-shaped economy, and the access that money buys inside it, has sharpened what people hear in “profit,” “developer,” “elite.” Some of it is more local than that — communities watching development arrive and understanding, sometimes correctly, that the wealthier residents got a say they didn’t.

Which is the thing I keep coming back to. These words are carrying more than they can hold. “Developer” is doing the work of a much longer sentence about who get to be in the room, who has a seat at the table, who has to live with what happens and the lingering resentment from what is lost.

Maybe that’s the next frontier, watching these coalitions try to parse their own vocabulary and the grievances stacked inside it. I’ll be listening for it.

Leave a comment

Rebrand!

(In case you missed it.) Yes, the newsletter looks different. I’m rebranding because I want it to be clearer what you get by being part of this community.

The news has me running 24 hours a day. Substack is where I slow down and take in moments. The scene that got cut in editing. The sentence a mother said that I couldn’t stop hearing. The thought too convoluted for a four-minute radio piece but too important to leave in my notebook.

What I want this to be now is the place we process together. Every other Sunday, one story. Have a coffee (or a cocktail) and process a moment with me. Dive into my thinking.

Let me know what you think. I read everything.

Subscribe now

Subscribe and Share

If this is the kind of stuff you want more of, subscribe. I'm going deeper on this. And if you know someone who should be paying attention to this, send it to them. Or maybe you just want to make a one-time donation to keep this Substack alive.

Share

Follow me on TikTok!

Follow me on Instagram too!

And here is my LinkedIn.

Order a signed copy of my sci-fi novel The Herd- When Democracy Falls.

And remember,…

Over half the tables outside the café were occupied but no one was eating.

I looked around. Wine, cups of complimentary chips, and here and there a cigarette. It was just past six, the heat had finally broken, and people gathered to enjoy each other and the weather for as long as it lasted. This was Paris almost every evening in August.

By this point in my trip, I had grown used to the way my conversations with others formed. Whether over wine or sparkling water, we would eventually discuss U.S. politics.

They would ask carefully. The way you ask about someone’s sick relative. What is happening in the universities? Are they still waiting on the results of the court cases? Is the media really free? Europeans have watched democratic states slide before, close enough to recognize the symptoms. I had answered versions of these questions in multiple arrondissements that week, falling back on the diplomatic and journalistic habits I carry with me. I offer the analysis, give the context, let them draw their own conclusions.

But Mathilde Saliou didn’t ask me how the U.S. was doing.

“The way the fight against data centers and the tech industry is happening in the U.S. should be an inspiration,” Saliou told me.

I paused and studied her face. Inspiration?

The best way I can think to describe Saliou is the Kara Swisher of France. Black overalls, short brown hair, and a bristly manner that turns out to be funny rather than unfriendly once you’ve been on the receiving end of it for twenty minutes. After graduating from Sciences Po, considered one of France’s elite institutions, Saliou has covered tech and the economy for over a decade. And after two books, Technoféminisme (2023) and L’Envers de la tech (2025), her role veers into the intersection of tech journalist and critic.

She now works on a project called Dirty Data — where journalists in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, Spain and elsewhere report on data centers from inside their own borders. Electricity demand. Water. Land fights. Displacement.

France’s open arms for data centers

I had come to the café expecting France to be more resistant to the proliferation of data centers, given Europe’s reputation for regulating technology more aggressively than the U.S. She told me that wasn’t the case. Yet.

France gets most of its electricity from nuclear power, which produces very little planet-warming pollution compared with coal or gas (I understand that concept can be confusing but that’s what the research says). It also currently produces enough electricity to export large amounts to its neighbors. People in Marseille aren’t opening a utility bill and stacking payment plans like the people I’ve reported on in Maryland. And companies like Digital Realty are expanding data centers in France.

She thinks the U.S. is ahead of the curve on tech and politics, and that French leadership follows where American money goes. In January 2025, Trump announced Stargate, a $500 billion bet on AI infrastructure over four years. The next month, Macron stood up at the AI summit in Paris and announced €109 billion in private-public funds for AI.

“Our politicians want to do everything like you guys do, which is super scary these days,” Saliou laughed. “A lot of the way we are going further and further towards privatization and away from the good functioning of our public space is inspired by some of the ways that you guys work.”

But apparently America exports the thing. And then America exports the resistance to the thing.

Parallels of U.S. and French resistance

The concept of Americans exporting rebellion to France is not new. The American Revolution helped shape the political imagination of the French Revolution about a decade later. In 2026 the stakes are different, but something of that transatlantic exchange happening again around data centers.

And you can see the parallels in the fights communities are having. For example, residents are questioning whether these enormous facilities belong near their homes and whether they get a meaningful say before they arrive.

In France it’s the port areas near the water, Marseille, and the suburban communities outside Paris. Saliou says these places have absorbed the landfills, the industrial parks and the things nobody wants to look at. Now they’ve noticed they are being asked to do it again with the data centers. The leading voices of protests come from “ecological NGOs,” the rough equivalent of our climate groups, but others are also involved. Lawsuits alleging developers skirting regulations and public consultation are popping up.

The bipartisan nature of the fight intrigues her: ordinary residents on the left and right protesting together (or apart in some instances) against some of the richest and most powerful companies in the world.

“I think the U.S. will lead the way of our political discussion six months later,” she added.

What data center protests mean for democracy

For Saliou, this fight has become a way of reading the health of American democratic institutions. Can community organizing and protests turn the tide and force change from powerful corporations that are only growing more politically influential by the day? Can Americans come together and stay together on an issue? In the age of rising authoritarianism and AI, do people still have power?

Basically, Saliou’s watching to see whether these protests work. Democracy can be an oddly nebulous word. Even as a reporter, I sometimes struggle to make something so large feel concrete. But talking with Saliou, one piece of it became very simple: Do people have the freedom to object to a decision, organize against it and actually influence what happens next?

The role of journalists covering tech

And Saliou didn’t exempt people like us, the journalists documenting all of this, from the question of who had agency and how they used it.

With over a decade on the tech beat, Saliou argues that tech companies have repeatedly sold governments on sweeping visions of the future—from medical breakthroughs to space exploration—while asking for favorable regulation and public support. And at one point in our conversation she gestured to me, offering a general critique that she’s sure applies.

“As journalists we should probably have done a better job at questioning the tech industry if they had the means to their ends, because they are the ones selling the dream,” Saliou told me. “What technological innovation do we actually want? And to what extent? To what means to what goals?”

After our conversation, I sat with her critique.

Leave a comment

Rebrand!

(In case you missed it.) Yes, the newsletter looks different. I’m rebranding because I want it to be clearer what you get by being part of this community.

The news has me running 24 hours a day. Substack is where I slow down and take in moments. The scene that got cut in editing. The sentence a mother said that I couldn’t stop hearing. The thought too convoluted for a four-minute radio piece but too important to leave in my notebook.

What I want this to be now is the place we process together. Every other Sunday, one story. Have a coffee (or a cocktail) and process a moment with me. Dive into my thinking.

Let me know what you think. I read everything.

Subscribe now

Subscribe and Share

If this is the kind of stuff you want more of, subscribe. I'm going deeper on this. And if you know someone who should be paying attention to this, send it to them. Or maybe you just want to make a one-time donation to keep this Substack alive.

Share

Follow me on TikTok!

Follow me on Instagram too!

And here is my LinkedIn.

Order a signed copy of my sci-fi novel The Herd- When Democracy Falls.

And remember,…

“I don’t give a damn about that,” he told me without flinching.

I leaned in, staring back into his steely brown eyes. “Really? You’re not worried about what the national Democratic Party wants?”

He shook his head, adamant. We stood shoulder to shoulder as the Senate chamber in the Annapolis, Maryland statehouse emptied. The wrinkles around his eyes didn’t mute their intensity. He sighed as if the explanation was too long for the time we had. And for a second, I wondered what years of experiences had done to get him to this moment. I had clearly missed something.

“I have a big problem with them carving up Mfume’s district and giving it to Sarah Elfreth and Johnny O.”

Kweisi Mfume is a Black congressman who represents the Baltimore area in Maryland. Elfreth and Johnny Olszewski are white. One of the congressional redistricting map proposals threatened to carve up Baltimore. And the Black Democratic state senator I was speaking with was counting. He was counting the number of Black representatives at the federal and state level.

“With our newest member in the Senate, the Black caucus will be 17 people, and leadership needs to reflect that.”

He went on to list what he wanted, committee chairmanships and the like. He didn’t give a damn about what national Democrats wanted in terms of numbers. He said he didn’t trust them to look out for his interests. And he had a big problem with the idea that Maryland’s Black community would sacrifice their representation for a national team he voted with but didn’t trust.

I had stumbled into this conversation while doing my usual reporter-style backgrounding. For me, these conversations were always the most revealing moments. Sometimes people dropped tips but most times they just spilled tea and aired all the petty politics that thrived in local government spaces. My interaction with this particular senator, who didn’t want me to publish his name, stuck with me. I thought, this is worth mentioning.

Because I went in with assumptions about where people stood framed around the dominant national narrative. Republicans wanted one thing and Democrats wanted another.

Then, the question really becomes, “Who is we?”

It’s like when the company is a “family” but it is time for layoffs, “Who is we?”

When you are a citizen of a country but it is time to go to war, “Who is we?”

When everyone eats dinner and it is time to wash the dishes, “Who is we?”

We are members of several overlapping groups, each of us at the centers of ridiculously complicated Venn diagrams. Race. Party. Country. Class. Profession. Neighborhood. Family. Most of the time, those circles overlap peacefully enough that we don’t have to decide which one matters most. But sometimes, forces beyond our control pull them apart.

I initially heard “I don’t give a damn about that” and thought I understood what he meant. I’m not so sure anymore. Somewhere along the line, his circles had stopped overlapping neatly. Black representation. Maryland. National Democratic power. He saw a situation where someone was going to be asked to sacrifice for someone else.

And before deciding what he owed the group, he was asking a very basic question.

Who is we?

Leave a comment

Rebrand!

(In case you missed it last week.) Yes, the newsletter looks different. I’m rebranding because I want it to be clearer what you get by being part of this community.

The news has me running 24 hours a day. Substack is where I slow down and take in moments. The scene that got cut in editing. The sentence a mother said that I couldn’t stop hearing. The thought too convoluted for a four-minute radio piece but too important to leave in my notebook.

What I want this to be now is the place we process together. Every other Sunday, one story. Have a coffee (or a cocktail) and process a moment with me. Dive into my thinking.

Let me know what you think. I read everything.

Subscribe now

Subscribe and Share

If this is the kind of stuff you want more of, subscribe. I'm going deeper on this. And if you know someone who should be paying attention to this, send it to them. Or maybe you just want to make a one-time donation to keep this Substack alive.

Share

Follow me on TikTok!

Follow me on Instagram too!

And here is my LinkedIn.

Order a signed copy of my sci-fi novel The Herd- When Democracy Falls.

And remember,…

I struggled to hold myself together. A playdate?

Yes, she replied, amused by my bewilderment.

I looked around. Her kitchen sink was full of dishes, a medicine cabinet for her medication, plush white carpet. I imagined the boys playing here, laughing, showing each other their toys. Their life really had changed.

The last time I saw this mother and son was in December. The homeless shelters were overcrowded, so the county placed them in a mice-infested motel. They didn’t have a kitchen, so they washed dishes in the bathroom sink. There were no cabinets, so medication bottles were spread across a table beneath the mounted television. I spent several hours over multiple days with them, documenting how they survived on a little over $200 a month in federal food assistance. But one of the most powerful moments of that reporting experience never made it into the story.

I remember my feet hurting, feeling cold and hungry after more than six hours in 28-degree weather, tagging along on a trip to Walmart and back. They left a third of the groceries they wanted behind because the money wasn’t enough. The ten-year-old, who had waited all day and night for dinner, was finally enjoying his air-fryer chicken nuggets and rice at 9:30 p.m. Conscious of the mice skirting back and forth across the floor, I thanked my lucky stars for my thick winter boots and kept my backpack off the ground. My colleague, a photojournalist with clearly more stamina than I had, finally said he had what he needed, and we began packing our things.

Then the child, who is autistic, had an episode. He threw himself against the wall, slammed doors, cried, hurled whatever he could reach. His mother struggled to hold and calm him while apologizing profusely. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “He’s upset that you all are leaving, because we never have guests over for dinner.”

I felt my empty stomach drop inside itself.

Of course they never had anyone over. They didn’t have a home. They barely had food for themselves. What would they offer visitors? Poverty didn’t just take the house, it took the guests.

I had covered poverty for years and somehow never counted isolation among its costs. Not until a ten-year-old grieved the end of a dinner party that was actually a reporting visit. We, a reporter and a photographer, taking notes and photos while he ate his chicken nuggets, were the closest thing he’d had to company in months.

Is it a coincidence that a loneliness epidemic is unfolding alongside an affordability crisis? Community is one of the most valuable things we have, and it turns out it costs money too.

I thought about his isolation as I drove home. I thought about it again as I pulled leftovers from my full fridge to make a late night dinner. I thought about it that weekend when the neighbors came over with their children to play. What must it do to a child to be isolated because of poverty?

Now, seven months since the story ran, members of the community have stepped in to support this mother and son, and the county found them a townhome through an affordable housing agreement with a developer. Their situation, though far from perfect, is much better.

It has been one of those moments that reminds me why I love being a reporter, watching people be moved by a story and then actually do something about it.

Which brings me back to the playdate.

As a mother, my heart couldn’t help but swell, watching him happily greet us and give us a tour of his home and toys when we arrived. I knew he did the same for his other guests.

And this time, when we said our goodbyes and promised to visit again, he calmly hugged us at the door and said see ya later.

Leave a comment

Rebrand!

Yes, the newsletter looks different. I’m rebranding because I want it to be clearer what you get by being part of this community.

The news has me running 24 hours a day. Substack is where I slow down and take in moments. The scene that got cut in editing. The sentence a mother said that I couldn’t stop hearing. The thought too convoluted for a four-minute radio piece but too important to leave in my notebook.

What I want this to be now is the place we proces together. Every other Sunday, one story. Have a coffee (or a cocktail) and process a moment with me. Dive into my thinking.

Let me know what you think. I read everything.

Subscribe now

Subscribe and Share

If this is the kind of stuff you want more of, subscribe. I'm going deeper on this. And if you know someone who should be paying attention to this, send it to them. Or maybe you just want to make a one-time donation to keep this Substack alive.

Share

Follow me on TikTok!

Follow me on Instagram too!

And here is my LinkedIn.

Order a signed copy of my sci-fi novel The Herd- When Democracy Falls.

And remember,…

As I scrolled, I saw one of my favorite fitness instructors in drag, chunky heels, shorts, flower bikini top covering his nipples, wishing everyone a happy Fourth of July.

I saw images that looked like they came from the 1930s, Black figures dancing in red, white and blue. I saw a Black woman draped in the American flag, tears streaking down her face with the words, “A reminder for the descendants of people who had to fight for a freedom they were promised but not given.”

I saw white nationalists marching near the Capitol, then gathering into the Metro, surrounding a Black woman.

I saw fireworks lighting up the night sky.

I saw President Trump’s vision of America, military planes overhead, record-breaking fireworks, a big fair, everything oversized and opulent. He got what he wanted despite the mild rain. Big. Loud. Expensive. Spectacular.

I saw a young, blonde Gen Z feminist I met online wearing a shirt with Trump, Giuliani and others in what appeared to be mug shots saying “The RICO tour.” She added a caption saying she was celebrating the last time the justice system worked, happy Fourth of July with Lana Del Rey’s “National Anthem” song attached.

I saw people crocheting. I saw barbecue plates. Hamburgers. Hot dogs. The kind of summer food that makes you understand why people love a grill.

I saw a Ukrainian monument lit up in red, white and blue, posted with the hope that Americans, particularly JD Vance would remember Ukraine still sees and values this country’s support.

One series of posts starts with a boat flying an American flag. The next shows a boat with a Mexican flag. Then fireworks over the Brooklyn Bridge, Spanish music playing in the background.

I saw someone post a clip of President Obama talking about America as a country built through violence and subjugation, but also as a country that still holds something powerful and beautiful.

I saw a post of Frederick Douglass’ speech, of course. “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” always comes back around this time of year. And it should. It is one of those texts that forces you to sit with the contradiction at the center of the holiday, a country celebrating liberation while denying it to so many people.

That is a lot to process.

Share

Processing pride. Processing grief. Processing belonging. Processing exclusion. Processing what this country has given us, what it has taken from us, and what it still asks of us.

It all feels like people saying, this is my story too.

That feels especially important right now, because we are living through a louder tug-of-war over the identity of the United States. You can hear it in political speeches. Some people talk about American exceptionalism. Some talk about immigrants and whether they belong. Some talk about patriotism versus nationalism. Some want a country that feels narrower. Others are insisting the story has always been wider than we were told.

But underneath all of it is the same question. Who am I in this story?

Because for many of us, this is home.

Even when America is painful, it is home. Even when we leave, it is home. Even when we are angry at it, disappointed by it, exhausted by it, it is still the place that shaped us. The place our children will inherit. The place we are trying to make sense of.

That is the strange emotional work of being American.

I have represented this country overseas as a U.S. diplomat. And I now poke at its imperfections as a reporter. Both are acts of patriotism, of love.

Both experiences remind me of how grossly and beautifully American I am.

Not because America is perfect. Not because it has always loved me back. But because this is the place where I learned how to be myself. This is the country whose language, contradictions, freedoms, failures and promises shaped me.

So on the Fourth of July, I find myself wanting to celebrate and process at the same time.

I want the fireworks. I want the barbecue. I want the music. I want the joy.

But I do not want my joy to require amnesia.

I want to acknowledge the parts that are beautiful and the parts that are painful. I want to be included without pretending exclusion never happened. I want to feel pride without surrendering honesty.

This processing is something I have to do almost every year. Sometimes I think I’ll be done, but each year I’m back, struggling to take it all in.

But then I’m reminded that this takes time. America is 250 years old and still figuring out who it is. Still processing.

Subscribe now

Subscribe and Share

If this is the kind of stuff you want more of, subscribe. I'm going deeper on this. And if you know someone who should be paying attention to this, send it to them. Or maybe you just want to make a one-time donation to keep this Substack alive.

Share

Follow me on TikTok!

Follow me on Instagram too!

And here is my LinkedIn.

Order a signed copy of my sci-fi novel The Herd- When Democracy Falls.

And remember,…

The executive was genuinely confused.

Was this a foreign attack? Who was organizing all this? Why had the public suddenly become so resistant to data centers?

I observed his martini glass. The drink arrived ceremoniously, three olives laid on ice in a tiny glass container beside it like a garnish, a waiter in pressed white and black hovering nearby. I adjusted myself on the plush velvet chair and told him a story I could guess few people in that room could relate to.

On a reporting trip, I visited the home of an older woman whose mother, during the single-digit temperatures of the previous winter, chose to bundle herself in layers of clothing rather than turn on the heat. She was afraid of her utility bill. That woman found her answers, and found that data centers were part of the reason for her mother’s suffering.

She, like many others I had observed, was part of the data center resistance. Her pain did not exist only in hyperbolic social media echo chambers. It came from real confusion about unaffordable energy prices, and a sense that no one powerful was being asked to fix it.

The executive paused for a long moment when I finished the story.

“I think,” he said, carefully choosing his words. “Technology companies are going to have to pay for the energy they require.”

As a reporter, part of my job is straightforward parroting — he said this, she said that. But what interests me even more is tracking how narratives evolve and why. And right now, I am watching the narrative around data centers and AI shift in real time.

It wasn’t long ago that the dominant message from AI’s most prominent voices was blunt about what the technology meant for ordinary people. I’ll never forget the jolt I felt arriving in New York City and seeing a billboard that read “Stop Hiring Humans,” beside a person too polished to be real. It was an ad for an AI agent company, and it made headlines for exactly the reason the marketers intended. “Provocative” conversation starter.

But the sign was probably the most honest version of a message that had been circulating for years. Leaders in the AI field, such as Elon Musk, built a rhetorical framework around human obsolescence. Humans were inefficient, expensive and now replaceable. It was a pitch that seemed to thrill investors and inflame everyone else, arriving precisely when inflation was rising, the job market felt unstable and the country was on the verge of minting its first trillionaire.

Leave a comment

For people already living with economic anxiety, AI was not arriving as a solution. It was another threat.

And that threat compounded as new models were rapidly released. AI made rapid advances in design, writing, and coding, menacing artists, journalists, editors, and eventually the engineers who built the systems in the first place.

The accumulation of those anxieties is visible in the data. A recent Gallup poll found that seven in ten Americans do not want an AI data center built near them. More Americans say they would rather have a nuclear power plant next door.

Politicians who once courted tech companies and data center development are now facing constituents in packed town halls, carrying signs, raising questions about rising prices, environmental damage and surveillance.

For some people, that resistance makes complete sense. For others, like the executive I recently met, it is genuinely baffling.

And the gap between those two reactions is influenced by the narrative of AI the person lives inside. The people I interview who are watching their energy bills climb and calculating payment plans they can’t keep up with, lean towards data center resistance. Others I’ve spoken with who see the technology as representing wealth, career opportunity, or national competitiveness, view resistance as irrational.

Hence the proliferation of the foreign actor narrative.

I have heard the foreign actor discussion from multiple sources in multiple settings. The suggestion is that organized resistance to data centers is not organic — that malicious foreign operatives are behind it, manufacturing the outrage and funding the people protesting.

Share

What research does tell us is that foreign operatives more often seize on existing fractures than create new ones. For example, researchers wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine about this dynamic in the Ukraine context. What appeared to be Americans parroting Russian disinformation was, after closer examination, Russian intelligence amplifying talking points that had originated on the American right by politicians and other Americans.

And alongside the foreign actor narrative is a deliberate effort to reset the AI story for the public.

This effort is taking place on multiple fronts simultaneously.

Executives are talking less about AI replacing humans and more about AI augmenting them, a partner rather than a predator. There is a coalescing around a national security argument, framing U.S. leadership in AI as a patriotic imperative in a global competition that genuinely exists. And there are highly influential cultural figures — Reese Witherspoon and Mel Robbins among the most prominent (and criticized) — encouraging women specifically to embrace AI as a tool for empowerment and equality.

These are pivots, and I don’t mean to suggest they are coordinated. But the goal of these growing narratives is to sand down the sharper edges of what was said before, and open a lane toward something more of the public might actually accept.

As a reporter who tries to speak with everyone, going back and forth between parties to capture how everyone feels, I can see how hard these messages are landing. People receiving these messages are increasingly distrustful of institutions sending them out, and many groups are operating inside algorithmic environments that reward hyperbole and amplify cognitive dissonance.

But there are also a number of people frustrated that their concerns are not heard.

I think often about a man I watched at a data center town hall in Montgomery County, Maryland. When his turn came to speak, he looked directly at the county executive and asked a question so frank it almost made me laugh out loud.

“Do you really care about what we’re all saying here,” he said, “or is this just some kind of Machiavellian exercise?”

It is a feeling many people echo online.

Are their concerns really being addressed? Are things really getting better? Can they trust the narrative shifts?

Subscribe now

Subscribe and Share

If this is the kind of stuff you want more of, subscribe. I'm going deeper on this. And if you know someone who should be paying attention to this, send it to them. Or maybe you just want to make a one-time donation to keep this Substack alive.

Share

Follow me on TikTok!

Follow me on Instagram too!

And here is my LinkedIn.

Order a signed copy of my sci-fi novel The Herd- When Democracy Falls.

And remember,…

Wow. That was an insane evening.

I was seated towards the back of the room at the White House Correspondents’ dinner. I heard the ruckus in the hallway, the sound of something falling, tables maybe. I saw people start to get on the ground, so I immediately followed suit.

In that moment, I remembered what they taught me at the State Department, find an exit. That’s the training. Mass shootings, bombs, active threats, get out of there. I didn’t know what this was. I could smell something like smoke.

And when I got under the table, I realized the tables were packed so tightly together that I couldn’t move. I hadn’t mapped the room when I arrived. I didn’t know where the nearest exit was.

“Idiot. How could I have forgotten to map the exit?”

So I stayed. Staying under the table felt like my only chance of survival.

I texted my husband.

8:35 p.m.: Something scary is happening.

8:35 p.m.: I’m under a table.

8:35 p.m.: I’m really scared.

8:35 p.m.: Tell the kids I love them if something happens.

8:44 p.m.: I’m okay.

It had felt almost surreal to be going to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in the first place, especially as a local journalist. Honestly, at some point it started to feel like a consolation prize. It had been a rough week. An editor I cared about deeply lost their job. I thought, at least this, a reprieve, something you only see once in a lifetime.

This wasn’t exactly the once-in-a-lifetime experience I had imagined. And I hope it actually is once in a lifetime.

But it gave me something, solidarity. With the Americans who experience this all over the country. The terror. The fear. The shaking you don’t even realize is happening. The shock, then the slow realization, then the wave — wanting to cry, wanting to be held.

I hugged a stranger. We held each other because we were both still alive. She took a picture with me. I don’t know where that photo is. I don’t remember her name.

They tried to keep the dinner going. But people had already started to leave.

This is America, 2026.

Instinct

And then, in the middle of all of it, the only thought I could hold onto was, “I need to fucking report this.”

I watched my colleague, a straight badass/crazy dude, Tyrone, get up immediately and run toward the story. I got up too. And you could tell, in that room, who the journalists were. Because the journalists (once they realized they were still alive) went reflexive. Straight into action. Telling the story that needed to be told. No pause, no permission.

But I still ebbed and flowed. I wanted to cry at one point. I decided to hold it together.

I got angry at one point. I decided to set that down too.

My body was shaking and I didn’t even realize it.

Everyone in that room knew it was going to be a tense night for multiple reasons. People protesting the president’s actions.

There was also a lot of petty things.

Tensions between higher list celebrities and others. At one point, certain people spent too long on the red carpet so they held others outside in the rain for extended periods.

But when the shooting started, all the hierarchy, all the status, all the credentialing and table placement and who’s-who dissipated. None of it mattered. We were all just people trying to survive, trying to get home to the people we loved.

Home

I filed a short story for national.

It’s 1:35 a.m. now. I just got into bed.

My three-year-old woke up and climbed into my bed.

I have never been so happy to be disturbed in my life.

Subscribe and Share

If this is the kind of stuff you want more of, subscribe. I'm going deeper on this. And if you know someone who should be paying attention to this, send it to them. Or maybe you just want to make a one-time donation to keep this Substack alive.

Share

Follow me on TikTok!

Follow me on Instagram too!

And here is my LinkedIn.

Order a signed copy of my sci-fi novel The Herd- When Democracy Falls.

And remember,…

I got my dress for $68 from Rent the Runway.

The fabric is thinner than I hoped.

Not that anyone at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner would comment, but it says something about how I got here. A few borrowed pieces. A connection. A newsroom that doesn’t have a stylist, makeup artist or a budget for appearances like this. Just enough to show up.

I’m a local reporter.

Right now, our newsroom has four reporters. We’re supposed to be hiring one more. We cover millions of people across multiple counties. On Monday, I shadowed a local political candidate as they knocked on doors. Last Saturday, I moderated a candidate forum in another jurisdiction entirely. On Tuesdays, I usually go to council meetings — but because I cover multiple jurisdictions, I wake up and check the agendas to decide who needs to see me more that day. Last week, I got a scoop: I found out Amazon was the end user of a massive data center project dividing a county. I spend almost every day trying to make sense of policies that are often decided far above the communities that live with them.

In our tiny newsroom, we collaborate heavily. We stretch everything. And somehow, we still manage to do the job. But I remember when the newsroom had nearly 20 reporters.

And preparing to step into a room like the White House Correspondents’ Dinner makes me feel the gap.

I feel it in the scale. In the resources. In the quiet pang of envy my gut has understanding that some newsrooms in that room have hundreds, sometimes thousands, of reporters, entire teams dedicated to topics I’m covering alone. The industry hasn’t just shrunk. It’s consolidated. And if you’re a local reporter right now, it can feel like you represent something that’s slowly disappearing.

A dying breed.

That’s the part people don’t always see when they look at events like this. The gowns, the photos, the optics of power and proximity. Underneath all of it is an industry that has been hollowing out for years. Newsrooms closing. Reporters laid off. Beats disappearing. And yet the work hasn’t gone away. If anything, it’s gotten harder. And more important.

My beat is Maryland politics, which is never really just local and never really just politics.

The decisions that shape people’s lives — job loss, rising utility bills, access to services, the strain on local governments — are often driven by federal policy and international pressures. In a place like the DMV, federal decisions land in your yard and your neighbors’.

I see it in food lines, the ones I visited multiple times during the record-breaking government shutdown.

I see it in the unemployed and retired National Institutes of Health workers who still protest federal cuts almost every weekend, though the cameras are long gone.

I see it in utility prices rising as the war rages on and local infrastructure struggles to keep up with sharing a grid with the data center capital of the world.

I see it in frustration of local government officials, scrambling to respond to decisions they frequently remind us they didn’t make.

Those are the stories we cover. Those are the stories I carry with me into a room like the correspondents dinner.

I hear people plan to wear “Free Press” pins this year. A statement. A signal of solidarity. I understand it. I believe in it. And I’ve worked in places where press freedom didn’t exist, and its complete absence left the public fending for themselves, by themselves.

And yet I feel a tension.

Apart from my fear of poking holes in this rented dress, it’s hard to talk about a free press when you’re watching the industry contract in real time. When talented journalists are losing their jobs. When your newsroom is doing everything it can just to maintain coverage.

Freedom can’t only mean protection from external pressure. It also means having the resources to actually do the work. And right now, that part feels fragile.

As a Black journalist, that fragility cuts deeper. The opportunities that are shrinking never fully stabilized for people like me in the first place.

So I’ve adapted. I’ve changed my style, learned new formats, built an audience in ways that weren’t expected of reporters before. I’ve done what I had to do to keep going. Because the alternative isn’t really an option.

There’s a conversation happening across the industry about independence, about going out on your own, building something new. I’ve thought about it.

But there’s also a reason institutions still matter.

Some of the interviews I’ve done have left men red in the face, screaming threats at me. Others have caused people to plaster my face online, hoping to drive hatred my way. In those moments, having an institution behind you, however frail, matters. Legal protection isn’t just a perk. Some days it’s the only way this job can be done.

So I’ve stayed. And I’ve balanced. And I’ve kept showing up.

That’s what this dinner represents to me.

Yes, it’s glamorous. Yes, there’s proximity to power. But more than anything, I need to show up. Show up as a local reporter in a room that isn’t always built for me. Show up carrying stories that don’t always make it into national conversations. Show up knowing that the work matters, even when the structure around it feels like it’s crumbling.

I don’t know what comes next. I don’t know how long before layoffs or circumstances change my course. But right now, I’m here, on behalf of the people in these counties. The ones who feel the impact of policy. The ones whose stories don’t stop just because a newsroom shrinks.

So I’ll go to the dinner.

I’ll put on this beautiful red dress and admire how the colors accentuate my dark skin.

And I’ll show up.

Because that’s what I’ve been doing. That’s what we do.

Subscribe and Share

If this is the kind of stuff you want more of, subscribe. I'm going deeper on this. And if you know someone who should be paying attention to this, send it to them. Or maybe you just want to make a one-time donation to keep this Substack alive.

Share

Follow me on TikTok!

Follow me on Instagram too!

And here is my LinkedIn.

Order a signed copy of my sci-fi novel The Herd- When Democracy Falls.

And remember,…

She paused, her eyes narrowing at me as she adjusted her glasses.

“You overanalyze things. How did you even get there? You do this a lot.”

I felt myself shrink into my seat. Normally, I loved that English class. I beamed when my teacher announced that I was the only fifth grader in her class to get a perfect score on the standardized exam. I not only read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer there, I found myself trying to draft colloquial language for the first time so I could write like Mark Twain.

But that criticism seared into my mind. Even now, as an adult, I can have valid concerns and still have to stop and wonder, “Am I thinking too much? Am I overanalyzing this?”

The truth is, maybe I am. And sometimes I do. But I’ve come to see this trait as a strength to lean into rather than a critique to correct—particularly in my work as a reporter, where it allows me to recognize patterns within the reporting and in human behavior, so I can ask questions that get to the why as opposed to just the what.

Analysis has become the bedrock of my social media style, growing my following to more than 20k people in a little over six months across Instagram and TikTok.

And it’s what I have used with my reporting on data centers, the massive buildings going up across the country to power artificial intelligence. If you’ve been following, I’ve spent months reporting on this subject from different angles. The DMV has become ground zero for data center development, hosting the largest concentration of them in the world, less than an hour from where I live. I’ve grown fascinated with all parts of it.

These are my broad thoughts on the subject, summarized in five points.

1. It’s not just a tech story

The data center story connects to so many things. It’s a power and influence story. A water story. A land use story. A community movement story. An energy story. An economic growth story. A local accountability story. And a national security story. These data centers are changing the American landscape at a rapid pace.

2. The data center resistance is a coalition you wouldn’t expect

Few things have brought Americans together quite like opposition to data centers. Socialist groups angry about surveillance and corporate power. Environmentalists fighting air pollution and water depletion. Residents who just opened their electric bill and want to know why it doubled. Conservatives pissed about eminent domain and transmission lines cutting through their farmland.

Share

3. Local movements have gone national

The resistance in Prince George’s County that led to a moratorium was one of the first, but it has spread. County after county has followed. Now Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are calling for a national pause on data center development. What started in community meetings is now in Congress.

4. The push to build is not stopping

Utility and generation companies stand to receive a massive payday. AI firms have billions in investment behind them. Local officials are looking for tax revenue and infrastructure dollars. AI leaders are literally discussing building data centers in space. That tells you everything you need to know about how intense the will is, among some very powerful and very wealthy groups, to keep this moving forward.

5. Americans are weighing the costs and benefits of AI

There’s no question that artificial intelligence is changing the way people live and work, and increasingly people are turning to it for all kinds of reasons. But they’re also asking real questions about what AI demands from them and what they’re actually getting in return.

Subscribe now

Each of these points can take you on a journey through your own thoughts. And in many instances, your ideas may be more “overanalytical” than anything I would come up with. (I’ve seen some of the comments on the stories, Lol.)

I hope this helps as we collectively think through some of the issues impacting us today.

My fifth-grade self would be relieved to know that the thing she was told to fix turned out to be something worth keeping.

Subscribe and Share

If this is the kind of stuff you want more of, subscribe. I'm going deeper on this. And if you know someone who should be paying attention to this, send it to them. Or maybe you just want to make a one-time donation to keep this Substack alive.

Share

Follow me on TikTok!

Follow me on Instagram too!

And here is my LinkedIn.

Order a signed copy of my sci-fi novel The Herd- When Democracy Falls.

And remember,…

Maybe I’m getting old, but they looked like kids.

With their blue hair, acne-laced faces, and septum piercings. But I suppose it takes a bit of the idealism that is granted through youth to arrange protests against some of the most powerful forces in the United States.

For the last few months, I have been covering a community uprising that sprouted in a Maryland suburb that most people can’t even find on a map. In a lot of ways it is reflective of protests that are sprouting up across the country.

If there was a man versus machine story to be told in 2026, this fight against AI data centers is it. There’s complexity, nuance, and tons of layers.

The symbol of tech hate

Data centers are massive warehouses filled with computer servers that power everything from your email to ChatGPT to TikTok. For a lot of people, they have become the physical representation of everything they hate about technology.

The hyperscale ones are sprouting up around the country at a rapid pace. I can’t think of another type of development going up as quickly and with as much capital as data centers. No malls. No office buildings. No restaurants.

And funny enough, northern Virginia in the DMV region has become ground zero for this. The area makes up about 13% of all reported data center operational capacity globally. And developers started the process of building them out in Maryland.

Why am I so obsessed with data centers?

But surprisingly, different groups in Maryland have formed unusual alliances and collectively pushed back on these developments.

And in covering this topic, I have become obsessed. Mostly because I tend to want to understand complex systems around me, and this shit is an incredible web of special interests.

I wonder how to get everyone to pause and see what I see. On one side you’ve got the obvious suspects, developers, certain politicians, union reps looking for construction jobs. On the other, the strangest coalition I’ve ever seen, socialists, farmers, environmentalists, and people who just opened their electricity bill and lost their minds.

You also have a few parties that don’t fit neatly into for or against, but are complex players with a big role in this fight — like PJM Interconnection, the electric grid operator for the mid-Atlantic.

I have done on and off the record interviews with people from all sides of this and I can confidently say that most people who are protesting have no idea what they are up against. It is insane to me that I happen to be the local reporter at this moment, at ground zero, documenting all of this in real time. Being let into something most people can’t yet see, and trying to figure out how to make them see it.

Share

Caught at an inflection point

I feel like I have a habit of being places during rare inflection points. As a college student, I left Cairo right before the revolution that overthrew Mubarak. During my time in Turkey, the Gezi Park protests broke out, one of the largest movements to restore democratic rule. While in the Gulf States, I found myself at the forefront of the end of the war in Afghanistan, as Qatar became the landing point for over 100,000 Afghans fleeing the Taliban takeover.

If you haven’t been paying attention, the United States is at an inflection point in so many ways. And a lot of the action happens to be right where I live in the DMV. What happens with the midterms, what happens with AI, what happens with data centers, and what happens with these protests will steer the country into its next era and significantly shape the reality our children experience.

Each day I have been writing a page, documenting what I am learning from interviews. I’m not sure what it will all turn into — a book? A podcast series? Neither? Both?

What I do know is that every time I untangle a piece of this web, I have a hard time sleeping.

In a 1962 New York Times essay, James Baldwin wrote, “Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

That’s what I’m trying to do here. Help people face it. Face it myself. All of it.

Subscribe and Share

If this is the kind of stuff you want more of, subscribe. I'm going deeper on this. And if you know someone who should be paying attention to this, send it to them. Or maybe you just want to make a one-time donation to keep this Substack alive.

Share

Follow me on TikTok!

Follow me on Instagram too!

And here is my LinkedIn.

Order a signed copy of my sci-fi novel The Herd- When Democracy Falls.

And remember,…

If you have ever watched a bull ride, you know the moment I mean. The pen hasn’t opened yet, and the rider is already gripping the back of that animal, knowing they’re about to get tossed and turned and thrown in directions the human spine was never meant to bend. They know they need to hold on for dear life while trying not to break a bone or make any other fatal mistake. They know they’re crazy for picking this ride, but the adrenaline and the rising stakes firm their grip. Everything they’ve trained for must rush to the front of their mind, because it’s now or never.

That was me last Sunday.

I had taken a two-week break from work over the holidays, but somehow I knew upon returning that I needed to be ready to ride that damn bull. As a political reporter covering the legislative session, elections, and an avalanche of other stories in a shifting media environment and world, I assumed 2026 would be a year for the history books. After watching the United States unseat the leader of Venezuela, sitting with a governor vying for reelection, and clicking on a video showing a woman shot by a federal agent (all within my first week back) I feel, for better or worse, that I was right.

I imagine this year feels similar for a lot of Americans. So in preparation for this bull ride of a year, I’ve done a few things I think will help me, and maybe others, survive.

1. Finding Routine in Chaos

I’ve set a morning routine that involves exercise and quiet. The news cycle is completely chaotic. Everything from international norms to vaccine schedules is changing. Whether it’s morning or evening, you may want to carve out something you can protect, something that keeps you grounded and feels constant. I get up at 5:30, get ready, and run. I purposely don’t check my phone or messages at that time so I’m not distracted or slowed down. The world will still be on fire when I’m done lacing my shoes.

2. Setting Personal Goals

I’ve also set some goals. Some involve work, others involve learning to be more present as a mom and a partner. The latter is actually what I struggle with more. My mind frequently wanders to things I could or should be doing when my kids want me to sit with them and play dinosaur puzzles. As a very serious person who does not enjoy kid games, I had to ask ChatGPT for activities I could do with my children that I would actually enjoy. These are goals I had to not only set but plan out in detail. But the forced balance keeps me grounded even as the world seems to spin around me.

3. Guarding Your Focus

And I’ve started worrying only about what I can control. This is probably the most controversial thing I’ve done, choosing to fiercely guard my focus. If problems in the office are above my pay grade, I stay in my lane. If fifty stories are breaking at once, I pick what I can cover and finish it. I get messages almost every day from people wanting me to cover this or that—real problems, things I wish I could take on—but I know I have to focus. Even if the world is burning, my kid may need a snack. And I’ve got to focus and cut those apple slices.

Share

What Does it Feel Like On the Bull Ride?

I recently met with a gentleman from another news network. We had worked together on a large story years ago. It had been years since we’d seen each other, and I could tell that life (and probably the news cycle) had aged him some.

He described how hard it was to stay in love with his work, keeping up with everything going on nationally while navigating the demands of internal station politics in a shifting media landscape. But then he pointed to some stories he had recently worked on, pieces so vivid and meaningful that I remembered them instantly. I had come across them months ago, and they had stayed with me.

And I guess that’s what it means to stay on the bull. We’re riding—finding the beauty in the pain, the strength in the challenge, the courage in the insanity, and resilience through the changes.

YEEE-HAWWWW!

Subscribe and Share

I hope you found this newsletter helpful and engaging. Please share with any friends or family you think would be interested and feel free to buy me a coffee by subscribing if you got some use out of it or make a one-time donation.

Share

Follow me on TikTok!

Follow me on Instagram too!

And here is my LinkedIn.

Order a signed copy of my sci-fi novel The Herd- When Democracy Falls.

And remember,…

The handle of the silver cooking pot jutted out of the bathroom sink. That’s what triggered my flashback to fourth grade, back to years as a homeless child that I’d long forgotten. The pot. My mind suddenly zoomed out and I could see her, really see her, living in this Red Roof Inn.

I stepped back mentally, taking in the room. Plastic storage bins stacked to higher than my waist. Medication bottles colonizing every horizontal surface. A laundry basket wedged between hanging coats near the sink, clean clothes draped across the comforters in careful piles. She couldn’t have a storage unit, I thought to myself. Everything appeared to be here.

The pot helped my mind start to see through the pieces of her life. Her plug-in stove top hidden between boxes and medication containers on the counter, the white air fryer not too far away from it. Her kitchen. Where she made dinner for her son.

And then I heard the mouse. Maybe two. Unwelcome residents. Or perhaps we were the unwelcome ones—they seemed even more entrenched in the place than she was. They would certainly remain when she left. She jumped every time she heard them, and her jumps made my heart palpitate too. I could see her jumping while she tried to cook.

Neither Here Nor There

For six months, I’ve been oscillating. Re-anchoring myself in journalism like this, in motel rooms, food lines, and more. Bearing witness. Then there’s social media, trying to stretch myself into uncharted territory on online. Building a “personal brand” while producing the work that reminds people why they need news in the first place. Craving the freedom and security that comes with a following, while feeling disgusted by what we’ve all sacrificed to the attention economy. It’s a lot of back-and-forth of the mind.

I imagine people in almost every industry are dealing with some form of this. Finding ourselves in this new economy. What keeps me grounded is the work itself. And lately, watching the cautionary tales unfold.

Olivia Nuzzi—the journalist who became the story, allegedly involved with a presidential candidate she was covering (maybe two). In some perverse way, she’s winning. Attention, after all, is currency now. But she’s also a warning about what happens when you lose your footing in a shifting industry.

The question isn’t whether the ground is moving. It is. The question is what you root yourself with while it does.

Resisting the Algorithm

Earlier this year, I wrote about my TikTok experiment. I was deeply uncomfortable with the platform, but the data didn’t care about my comfort. One in five people now use it as a primary news source, a number that keeps rising. Facebook and Instagram claim even more news consumers. With AI killing website traffic, social media is the medium of the hour for publishers.

I started at zero in July. I’m approaching 10,000 followers now, outpacing my peers in national and reaching audiences who’ve never heard of WAMU or NPR.

But I’m far from finding my footing. I constantly wade too deep into one style, one mode, and have to pull myself back because I could feel my ‘footing getting unsteady,’ forgetting what I was doing this all for as I obsessed over the algorithms.

For me, the most powerful recalibration is returning to places like the room in the Red Roof Inn. Rooms with pots in bathroom sinks and mice in the walls. They remind me why I gave news a shot in the first place, so that people like her—people who remind me of my own family at a particular point in history—could understand what was happening in the systems that governed their lives. Could hold the powerful accountable.

Share

Who Signed Us Up For This?

And for me to reach that goal,...sometimes that means standing in the Red Roof Inn. Sometimes it means standing in rooms where people’s titles don’t fit on business cards. Sometimes it means being on TikTok. Sometimes it means doing what you have to do to build a following, to keep your job, to survive.

We’re living through an era of economic evolution that demands constant rebalancing. The ground is shifting beneath all our feet—journalists, teachers, doctors, technicians, politicians, anyone whose profession is being reshaped by technology, attention, and economics beyond our control. It’s like we are all suddenly part of something we didn’t want to sign up for.

Just don’t lose your footing. Know what you’re rooted to. Find the pot in the sink and use it as a moment to recalibrate and anchor yourself.

Subscribe and Share

I hope you found this newsletter helpful and engaging. Please share with any friends or family you think would be interested and feel free to buy me a coffee by subscribing if you got some use out of it or make a one-time donation.

Share

Follow me on TikTok!

Follow me on Instagram too!

And here is my LinkedIn.

Order a signed copy of my sci-fi novel The Herd- When Democracy Falls.

And remember,…

Where I live, you can probably throw a stone and it’ll hit a federal worker. That’s how grounded we are in the federal government here in the DMV. For decades, that’s been DC’s superpower, the thing that made this region different from every other American city. While the rest of the country rode the waves of boom and bust, the DMV stayed steady. Almost recession-proof. The government always needs people, and those people need coffee shops and daycares and dry cleaners and bars. It was an ecosystem built on one fundamental assumption. Stability.

That assumption is cracking.

I’m a reporter here, which means I’m both documenting this moment and living through it. Some weeks I’m not sure which role is more exhausting. What I can tell you is this, DC has become ground zero for a particular kind of American instability, and it’s breeding a quiet anxiety that blankets this city like nothing I’ve witnessed before.

What DC Was

To understand what’s happening now, you need to understand what DC used to be, what it attracted, and who it drew in.

This city filled itself with a particular type of person, the altruistic public servant. I bold altruism because I truly feel like it seeps within the bones of so many people here. People who want to feel connected emotionally to meaningful work.

Getting a federal job here used to be the jackpot for people who weren’t chasing jackpots. It attracted a different kind of dreamer — not the Silicon Valley disrupter, not the Wall Street climber, but the public servant who wanted to feel tethered to something larger than themselves. You didn’t come here to be rich; you came here to build a life. A family. A mortgage. A sense of meaning. (Then of course there’s the power hungry people.)

The Shift

I won’t rehash everything that’s happened—the funding cuts, the federal worker firings, DC losing autonomy, the National Guard and ICE presence that’s become almost background noise, the clashes between Governor Wes Moore and the administration, the gutting of NIH and FDA in nearby Montgomery County. If you’re reading this, you probably already know the list. It grows every week.

But what doesn’t get enough attention is the psychological toll. And I think that is because it is harder to report on.

Anxiety looks surprisingly quiet.

People carry it. They don’t scream it. You sometimes see it in yard signs or bumper stickers. Maybe you hear it at happy hour. You feel it in the air—this sense that everyone is waiting for something else to happen, for the next shoe to drop, for everything to come crashing down.

I have a rule now: give it ten minutes. Go to any bar, any cafe, any playground in this city, strike up a conversation with someone, and within ten minutes you’ll get to the anxiety. You’ll get to the administration. You’ll get to the cuts. You’ll get to something that’s been changed, shaken, upended, something that person is carrying on their shoulders whether they want to or not.

Share

What Quiet Anxiety Looks Like

I recently met a furloughed federal worker at a playground where my kid was playing. It was the second time I’d seen him, so we had that tentative “friendly acquaintance” thing going. But this second time we met he opened the conversation with: “Did you see the Nobel Peace Prize discussion?”

That was the thing irking him that day. Not whether he’d have a job next month. The Nobel Prize discussion. Somehow I knew, this conversation was not really about the Nobel Prize. It was about everything else he couldn’t control.

At a happy hour last week, I was talking to a woman who mentioned she’s a lawyer. About ten minutes in (there’s that rule again) she told me she’s been defending people who she believes were wrongfully arrested. Not as a one-off. As a pattern. Because of what she called “the siege that DC is under,” she’s now routinely taking on cases that she says never would have been problems before.

Living It While Covering It

There’s a heightened blanket sense of anxiety that didn’t exist here. It’s shared by the community whether you work in the federal sector or not.

I wish I could offer reassurance or a clear path forward. I can’t. What I can tell you is that we’re not through this. The system of DMV is shifting, and it’s not clear yet what it will become.

There are rumors of recessions. Rumors of a housing crisis. Rumors of mass exodus. Rumors of a lot of possible things. Some will materialize, others won’t. But all of them hang in the air, adding to that collective anxiety.

The only certainty is this, we’re living through a period of the nation’s capital’s history that will be studied, analyzed, and debated for decades. Future historians will mark this as the moment something changed.

The people here right now? They’re just trying to get through each day, each week, each month. They’re trying to figure out if the stability they were promised will ever return.

And mostly, they’re carrying this quiet anxiety, waiting to see what comes next.

Bonus

I was going to leave this heavy, but what better levity to bring than that from the legendary Diane Keaton, may she RIP.

Subscribe and Share

I hope you found this newsletter helpful and engaging. Please share with any friends or family you think would be interested and feel free to buy me a coffee by subscribing if you got some use out of it or make a one-time donation.

Share

Follow me on TikTok!

Follow me on Instagram too!

And here is my LinkedIn.

Order a signed copy of my sci-fi novel The Herd- When Democracy Falls.

And remember,…

A few months ago, I was standing outside waiting to meet my agent and tour another home outside of my family’s budget (we all do it). Despite all the commotion about job loss in the region, at this point, the last two homes we bid on went for about $100k over asking to full cash buyers in typical DMV real estate market fashion. That’s when a sprightly elderly couple walked by, saw me, and assumed they needed to intervene and save me.

Subscribe now

“Are you alright? Is this man bothering you?” the woman said, gesturing toward my agent.

That’s how I met “Grace” (the nickname I’ll give her for the purposes of this newsletter).

After we all laughed off the misunderstanding—my agent wasn’t harassing me, just doing his job—Grace and her partner asked what I was up to. When I explained I was house hunting, their eyes lit up.

“Well, we’re actually thinking about selling,” they said, almost conspiratorially.

Since then, Grace and I stayed in touch. Then one day, she called. Her daughter lived on the other side of the country, and after three decades in the same house, Grace was ready to make the move west. Did I want to see her place?

Of course, I braced for disaster. The house would be falling apart. The price would be astronomical. Something would go terribly wrong because that’s just how these things work in the real world.

Well,...

The house was lovingly maintained for over 30 years. The price? Below market. And even though the agent shopped the home off-market to other interested buyers, Grace held the house for me. She said she looked up my background online and decided I was “perfect for this place.”

“I’m waiting for Jenny’s offer,” she told her agent.

It was unbelievable.

I watched this woman do something I wasn’t sure people in the world still did, choose heart over the highest bidder. It was personal, intimate, serendipitous. Like something you’d see in a movie. But it was happening to me.

I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. It never did.

Now I’m officially a Maryland homeowner, here to stay—at least for now.

We signed over ownership together, and the title company said this was the first time in over 15 years they did something like that.

One of the most difficult pieces of journalism I ever wrote told my story of feeling invisible to educators during multiple periods of housing insecurity as a child. And it has been quite the journey watching the transience of my childhood follow me as an adult who has moved almost every single year for the last 15 years. From homelessness to diplomatic life, forces have moved me around so frequently that I stopped putting up photos in the places I lived.

Now, as I lay on a bed that I hope to be mine for the next 10 years (because I think I’ll need a new bed after a while), I’m excited to put up a few pictures. I want to put up pictures of friends coming over, my boys growing up, my husband and I celebrating more anniversaries, and even some takes of me doing the work I love as a journalist.

Glad to be back! Glad to be home.

At a time when there are so many dark stories in the headlines, I hope this one offers you a little levity.

Subscribe and Share

I hope you found this newsletter helpful and engaging. Please share with any friends or family you think would be interested and feel free to buy me a coffee by subscribing if you got some use out of it or make a one-time donation.

Share

Follow me on Instagram too!

And here is my LinkedIn.

Order a signed copy of my sci-fi novel The Herd- When Democracy Falls.

And remember,…

I am one summer break until mid-September. (Truthfully, I am moving and it’s a lot of work.) So I am bringing back some oldies but goodies you may have missed. First published August 2024.

James Baldwin has to be one of the most interesting public thinkers in history. He was the original “woke” figure when the word still meant enlightened. His words in the United States and overseas forced people to think deeply about the founding, beauty, and complications of our country. On his 100th birthday, we should reflect on one of his more controversial ideas that we still debate today—that we all built America.

“I am not a ward of America. I am not an object of missionary charity. I am one of the people who built the country. Until this [is accepted] there is scarcely any hope for the American dream,” Baldwin concluded during a 1965 debate against William F. Buckley, founder of the conservative National Review in the UK. Baldwin won the debate.

Subscribe now

His rhetoric was bold and still is. His words, noting that Black and other minorities are not simply people who have taken from the state but people who have helped build it, remain controversial, though a matter of historical record as he notes.

Other authors like Nikole Hannah-Jones have come under scrutiny and had their books banned for echoing similar ideas.

Why does this idea ruffle people’s feathers?

Particularly today, there seems to be a notion that Black people are unjustly taking from the country without earning what they have received. Following the Supreme Court striking down affirmative action and the anti-DEI movement, this concept is perpetuated. We see it in references to elected officials, journalists, CEOs, and the like as “DEI” which once meant diversity, equity, and inclusion, now insinuating they didn’t earn their spots. I’ve had friends in various positions say they were attacked online with terms like “DEI.”

But Baldwin challenges this perpetuating idea that Black Americans must constantly prove themselves to belong.

“From a very literal point of view, the harbors and the ports, and the railroads of the country, the economy, especially of the southern states, could not conceivably be what it has become if they had not had… cheap labor,” says Baldwin during that debate, referencing the slaves who built the country “under someone else’s whip… for nothing.”

So what if people learn and internalize that Black and other minorities in the country have earned their spaces and have contributed to the building of this country?

This is something that theorists like W.E.B. Du Bois and Baldwin point out as important in their writings and speeches. They argue that it is crucial to see Black contributions to society—not just for making peanut butter like we often do during Black History Month, but as Baldwin notes, for the railroads or, as Hannah-Jones points out, for the realization of civil rights in the country.

Once you start from a place of believing that a minority person with a high position did something to earn it, and people see each other and their ancestors as equal contributors to the country, equally hardworking, the manner of discourse on so many issues could change.

Therefore, it goes without question that Baldwin’s thoughts are as relevant today as they were in 1965. The debate, though morphed in some ways, still rages on.

“If one has got to prove one's title to the land, isn’t 400 years enough?” asks Baldwin. “400 years, at least 3 wars, the American soil is full of the corpses of my ancestors.”

Share

Has having kids suddenly become political?

Does anyone else think it’s... odd... that this election season the rhetoric has divided Americans between those of us who have children and those who don’t? Like many things this election cycle, I did not see that one coming.

I know a lot of people—people who aspire and don’t aspire to be parents—and none of those decisions are political. For many people I know, having children is a deeply personal, apolitical decision. For some, the choice is out of their hands; they may want kids but can’t have them or have lost them.

But I have lived in countries where bearing children is a political act for some party members. In Turkey, for example, in 2009, then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called on families to bear three children each as a way of securing the strength of the nation.

“Strong families lead to strong nations,” Erdoğan was quoted saying.

In Spain, political leaders have passed policies to encourage people to bear children, an effort to hedge against an aging population. But both of those countries are arguably more accommodating than the U.S. for parents. They have paid leave policies and, in Spain, public playgrounds for children are everywhere.

In America, without paid leave and with soaring childcare costs, having a kid is not always considered an economically sound decision. When I was in the State Department, several foreign service officers with young children refused to take posts in the United States because of the cost of childcare and the availability of affordable quality schools.

With this new line of discussion about parenthood in America, maybe more discussions will follow about ways to relieve parents from the burdens of having children.

Leave a comment

What I Am Reading: Sapiens

I recently picked up the book "Sapiens" by Yuval Noah Harari, a book about the evolutionary development of human cognitive abilities. This book is as interesting as it is dry, and yes, both things can be true. But one part of the book stuck out to me: the lack of understanding about the persistence of gender inequality throughout human societies throughout time.

It’s wild because throughout the novel the author has interesting explanations for why humans are racist, why Europeans ruled the seas, why monotheistic religions became more influential than polytheistic ones, and so on. But there is no explanation for why no matter what society I was born into almost at any time in human history, if I was a woman, I would most likely be subjected to a lower class.

He then goes on to debunk common theories that people have about why this is, like strength. For example, he points out that great strength simply meant you got put on the front lines and died first, but the people actually running things were often average and smart like Napoleon. It was intelligence and the ability to govern that made leaders in societies, not strength.

But why then do we see this persistent gender inequality everywhere? Don’t women have the capability to be just as intelligent? Frustratingly, he doesn’t have a concrete answer.

This particularly struck me because I recently did a story for NPR that showed how people incarcerated in women’s prisons had less access to educational opportunities than those in men’s prisons. This is important because access to education is said to be the number one way to reduce recidivism. And just by a set of what could be described as flukes, women, even in prison, don’t have equal opportunities.

Subscribe and Share

I hope you found this newsletter helpful and engaging. Please share with any friends or family you think would be interested and feel free to buy me a coffee by subscribing if you got some use out of it or make a one-time donation.

Share

Follow me on Instagram too!

And here is my LinkedIn.

Order a signed copy of my sci-fi novel The Herd- When Democracy Falls.

And remember,…

I am one summer break until mid-September. (Truthfully, I am moving and it’s a lot of work.) So I am bringing back some oldies but goodies you may have missed. First published March 2025.

This is Chapter 1 of my book, The Herd.

If you missed the other chapters, you can listen to Chapters 2, 3 and 4 right here on this blog. And if you’d like to own the book, you can grab a copy from your favorite retailer via my website.

You can also listen to the audio version of this chapter, just a heads-up, it does include some strong language.

But hey, this dystopia might just feel a little better than the one some of us are living through.

Enjoy the ride.

I slide the story toward the editor and wait for a response. He curses while furiously striking his keyboard.

"Fucking idiot, these fools will believe anything." He doesn't look up or reach for the paper. "Is this what the bots gave you?"

"I—" I pause, unsure if I should tell him the truth. "I made some changes. I had to—"

"Again?" He finally looks at me.

I wipe my sweaty palms against my jeans and calculate my words.

"The numbers were off. I ran it several times on my own. Changes the whole story," I manage to choke out the truth.

The fury from his fingers engulfs his hand like flames as he slams his fist against the desk. His mouse and keypad jump, and the precious coffee others in the outside world would literally kill each other to have spills on the ground.

"Damn it." His eyes dart toward the coffee.

He stands up and trudges towards me. Instinctively, I stumble backwards and graze my hands over the dagger hidden on my waist.

He keeps marching toward me, and I keep backing away until I hit his cold mahogany door. I keep my eyes on him while feeling for the handle, wishing I had left it open. I inhale and exhale with each step he takes.

"You will not tell anyone about this," he says, digging his finger into my shoulder and fogging my glasses with his breath.

"We are working on an update, and there are a few kinks. We don't want anyone to needlessly panic. You understand?"

I nod slowly.

"Very well then." He takes a few steps back, leans against his desk, and lets out a deep breath.

"Thank you again for making the corrections. It's imperative that we have and maintain trust. You are dismissed."

Relieved, I whip around, open the door, and bolt out of the room. But just as I am turning the corner, I catch a glimpse of the stack of papers I left on his desk hanging over the trash bin.

That was three months ago.

***

Subscribe now

My sweaty hands grip the edge of my desk as I sit at my usual workspace, waiting for my name to be called. I close my eyes and try to tune out the noisy beeps and churns of the machines and chatter all around me. I've waited four years for this moment, but somehow I still don't feel ready.

I work as a contractor for one of the largest news networks in the world, the only network on this side of the Atlantic to survive the crash and resist acquisition by either a billionaire or the government. People tell me I'm lucky to be here, that many desire my job, and so I should be happy. And I am happy, or at least I think I am.

I work in the heart of the news station, which buzzes like a factory. There are about ten long tables in parallel rows, each with about ten editors seated next to machines that resemble printers but possess the artificial intelligence of advanced bots. These machines scan the internet, smart devices, and all types of digital outputs for announcements and credible leads for news stories, then assemble the first drafts of stories for the editors to review. The editors review the drafts, make the necessary changes, and upload the articles. But most of the time, they simply upload the drafts since the machines have become so advanced that they hardly need editing. Once the higher-ups in the station approve the stories, they are published, and the editors share them on social media. I sit in the third seat on the first row.

Our seating is a sign of rank. Editors say it can take years to get to the first row, but I did it just after two.

I stare at the paper the bot has spewed out for me to review. It's about the poverty rate throughout the country. According to the raw copy, based on leaked government records, the numbers have remained stable for the last six months. My fingers glide across the bot's screen, requesting the dataset the computer has used. With a quick glance, I notice several errors.

Another one, I think to myself. That's the fourth time this week!

Lately, I've been catching a lot of these mistakes. It started about five months ago when I was bored and picked up one of the rare history books my uncle left me about what used to be the United States economy before the crash. While reading, I noticed a historical detail in the book that directly contradicted something I saw in one of the bot stories I edited and published earlier that day. As I dug deeper into the details and reviewed the story, I found multiple inaccuracies.

Since then, I've gone down rabbit holes with these bot stories, checking and double-checking. Normally, I try to keep a low profile, but there were so many mistakes I decided to alert some senior editors. They supposedly looked into it and told me it’s nothing but an update bug. I don't know if I believe them. Something feels off.

I also have a strange feeling I've been watched more closely since reporting the incident. People know who I am, but for years I've successfully laid low. My father had a reputation for constantly shaking things up, and I saw firsthand what it cost him and my family.

Truth is, there's not much value in shaking things up these days. We need the station. People need something they can trust. I need something I can trust.

My mind returns to the story. It's clear from the data that certain regions have been severely undercounted. I decide to rework the headline and the story. It now reads, "Bogus Numbers Keep the True National Poverty Rate Hidden."

I stare at the bot next to me, wondering if I need to report this uptick in errors again—not just from what the bots spew out but also from what I see published. It worries me that the public might begin to question our credibility. But I also wonder, who am I to bring up such accusations?

"Feonix, Feonix!" A voice jolts me from my thoughts.

I look up to see Emre hovering over my desk. I tense, instinctively wary of his intentions.

"Uhhh, hi," I reply, confused, wondering why after all this time he has decided to make conversation today.

His hazel eyes meet my brown ones as I look up. He's tall and handsome, with a mischievous grin that makes me wonder if he knows something I don't. The way he carries himself, people might assume he thinks he's better than everyone else—present but a bit aloof, as if he has better things to do than this job. I assume he's talking to me because of the competition and nothing more. But as his eyes pierce mine, I almost hold my breath, waiting for his reply. I'm not trying to get caught up in any more station entanglements, but I cannot deny that Emre has swag.

"I know we haven't spoken much," he says slowly, seeming unsure of what to say next, "but I wanted to say good luck tomorrow—not that you need it. You make this look easy."

There's a sincerity in his voice that catches me off guard, as if he genuinely cares about my fate. It makes me want to believe that perhaps not everyone here is part of the facade. Maybe, just maybe, I could afford to let my guard down. But old habits die hard.

"We haven't spoken at all," I snap back at him, immediately regretting the harshness of my words. "And I really don't have the time to start today."

His half-smile fades to a frown, and for a second, I want to kick myself for being a bitch again. I could maybe use a friend, or at least one less enemy in this process. But my instincts remain, and instead of apologizing, I give him a look that says, "Why are you still here?"

His beautiful eyes dim as his pleasant demeanor vanishes. He walks back to his seat in the second row. If my response has dejected him, he doesn’t show it as he quickly resumes his work. I can't help but notice how he nervously taps his fingers on the table, something I've seen him do when he's deep in thought. I wonder what he's thinking about now. Probably that I'm such a bitch.

I shake my head as if to clear it and look back down at my computer. My hands shake, and my face feels flushed. I suddenly thank my lucky stars for the melanin in my skin.

Get it together, I think to myself. What an outsized reaction to a basic greeting.

The bot lights up. My story has been approved. The tension in my body drains away with this realization, then immediately tenses again as I remember what else I have to do. I’ve come to enjoy most of my work, but sharing on social media always gives me anxiety. Some editors are obsessed, arguing with every bot and person online. They thrive on the drama, the relentless back-and-forth exchanges that give them a sense of purpose. And somehow, all the belligerence and hot takes have garnered them large followings. To me, social media interactions have always seemed disingenuous. We all know we put up a facade there. Would they say that shit to my face? I know they wouldn’t.

Up until two years ago, my account looked like a bot's. I followed a few people, like the news director (everyone follows the news director), and only a few people from my neighborhood followed me. But two years ago, I decided I needed to do more to qualify for the Aptitude Test. Now, I have thousands of followers.

There's only one news director position, and for years, they have been looking for a successor. To narrow the choice down fairly, years ago, the station director announced that the person with the highest score on the Aptitude Test, when she either passes the baton because she can no longer work or passes away, will be the successor.

But to even qualify for the test, you must be a Station 7 employee and have at least 300,000 social followers—the concept being that you must be both intelligent and exhibit leadership. Few contractors qualify, and none have passed any part of the test. So I certainly stand out, and I know it.

But today is my last day as an editor because my contract is about to expire, and—in order to fulfill my promise to my uncle—I decide to take the Aptitude Test. I will probably fail. I am not a leader. I don’t even have friends. But I made a promise.

If I pass the test with the highest score, I'll take over this building as the head of the source of information that has given me and others hope for so many years—an improbable scenario.

If I lose, the more likely outcome, I don’t really have a next step planned. There’s not much planning that can be done with life outside of the station, only trying to survive.

After all I've done, I have never been offered a full-time role. I guess I’m not perky or likable enough. I applied so many times but am always told they feel a different candidate is a better fit. Maybe it’s all my complaints about the bots. Either way, my time as an editor expires because my contract will be up, and I'll have nowhere to go.

I've known for a while that my time was ticking, so two years ago, I amped up my social strategy to qualify. Station 7 employees often get more followers than most people because of the organization’s reputation. Two years ago, I had 6,804 followers. But when I started taking the work more seriously—spotting mistakes the bots made, staying up late to take on challenging stories, and not only sharing my stories but also the process behind them—my following exploded. Now I have about 450,000 people following every post I make, giving me many more followers than I need to qualify.

"This will be one of my last story explanations," I begin typing my next post to my followers.

"I've entered the contest. I will start the Aptitude Test tomorrow," I continue.

"If I win, I hope I can be half the leader Director Revel is, consistently upholding the truth. Thank you all for your support. I hope you will continue to follow and support me."

I hesitate for a minute, reading the message about three times. Then I hit send.

Immediately, my screen lights up with notifications, and my following grows by the thousands. Every time someone enters the Aptitude Test, they gain thousands of followers. Though the details of the test are secret, people update their followers as they pass certain parts, and followers root for contestants like sports teams.

I wonder who these followers are. I wonder how many of them root for me to succeed. Then I consider how many of them want me to fail.

I close the screen and take a deep breath. I try to hide my anxiety, which has built to mountainous proportions by this time. It’s coming from not only from the fact that I am taking the test but also because I waited until the last minute to do it.

I close my eyes.

"Idiot, you are an idiot," my father's words echo in my ear.

"Where will you go when you fail?" I imagine him questioning me. "Once you lose, you'll be thrown to the wolves. Chicken shit. You have a month, then you'll be back in the streets with the rest of the trash where you belong."

Buy Now

Subscribe and Share

Subscribe now

I hope you found this newsletter helpful and engaging. Please share with any friends or family you think would be interested and feel free to buy me a coffee by subscribing if you got some use out of it or make a one-time donation.

Follow me on Instagram too!

And here is my LinkedIn.

Order a signed copy of my sci-fi novel The Herd- When Democracy Falls.

And remember,…

I am one summer break until mid-September. (Truthfully, I am moving and it’s a lot of work.) So I am bringing back some oldies but goodies you may have missed. First published March 2024.

Apart from tapas, Barcelona has apparently given the world another export: Aitana Lopez, an AI influencing fitness guru. Think impossibly smooth skin, perfectly flowy pink hair, and proportions that make Disney princesses look downright average. I remember staring at her photo, mesmerized, reminded of the stomach pouch I carry after giving birth to two children. At first, I assumed these were your standard “overly filtered” social media personalities—just more curated than usual. But as I kept scrolling, I realized there was no human underneath the face-tuning apps. These influencers weren’t real people at all.

Subscribe now

That realization left me half-fascinated, half-freaked out. I’d been one of those folks who constantly rolled my eyes at influencers for being “fake.” Now, here I was, gawking at every pixel of something literally not human—yet with hundreds of thousands (sometimes millions) of followers. After all the flak we give human influencers for lacking authenticity, how on earth did a completely fabricated personality rise to stardom? Does our need for a flawless idol trump the requirement that it be a breathing person? I wanted answers, and I found them in a chat with a digital anthropologist who pointed out, in the most Canadian-and-British-friendly way, that this phenomenon is just a high-tech spin on something ancient.

AI influencers are surging across social platforms, offering a brand-safe, always-on persona that never sleeps or scandalizes. It seems contradictory, but according to experts, resonates with a historical human tendency to create icons—totems—that embody shared values. What we’re witnessing is the collision of that ancient behavior with cutting-edge tech, opening up a new sphere for brands, marketers, and communities worldwide.

Leave a comment

An Evolution in Human Idol Worship

Just regular humans Giles Crouch and I having a conversation on AI influencers and totemism for JAMCQ. I have about 3k followers on X, Giles has about 4.5K on LinkedIn, so AI has us both beat.

It’s not like worshipping celebrities is new. We’ve been doing this for thousands of years—building statues, wearing masks, creating figures to rally around or pray to when life got unpredictable. Giles put a name to it: totemism, this old-as-dirt practice of giving an object or idea (like a carved figure or a killer pop album) enough power that entire communities unite around it. If you’ve ever yelled “Slay!” at a Beyoncé concert, you’ve already joined that club. I’m a card-carrying member of the BeyHive myself, so I totally get the urge to gather en masse around a single iconic figure. When it works, it feels like belonging, but it also feels a little primal—like you’d do out-of-character things in the hive.

Subscribe now

Now, imagine transferring that same raw devotion to a digital entity that can’t ever slip up or randomly decide it wants to grow old and retire. AI influencers basically take this centuries-old totem thing and supercharge it. They talk back to us, post flawless content 24/7, and never reveal any awkward details about their personal lives—because they don’t have one.

“Totemism on Instagram is aesthetic, so design means a lot,” explains Giles, noting how the idols are created in each platform. “In TikTok, well, it's more performative totemism. An AI influencer encourages people to sing and dance along, so it's more of an active thing. Twitter or X, that's more what I call conversational totem, totemism. It's more about dialogue. Then there’s YouTube. There it is narrative totemism because they're longer videos. There can be some engagement but not really. It’s the AI influencer creating the narrative, and it's less so about the community.”

Totemism makes total sense: people want icons to believe in, to dress like, to defend in online wars. We used to carve them in stone; now we code them to perfection. And the most mind-blowing part? We’re still showing up with the same fervor, if not more.

Share Jenny Explains World Systems & Stories

Syphoning Marketing Dollars Off to AI

Reports project the influencer marketing industry to be valued at a whooping $24 billion and growing. When you add AI influencers into the mix, the possibilities seem boundless. So how are brands tapping into this totemism?

“People like to relate to brands, but they don't have relationships with them,” says Giles. But AI influencers are changing that.

They allow brands to embody human-like figures, totems, to build direct bonds with consumers.

“What’s interesting is that it’s not so much the influencer that we’re forming a relationship with—it’s the community we create around that influencer,” Giles Crouch explained.

And for many companies, the holy grail is fostering a sense of community— profitable communities.

Giles points to companies like Puma, a German athletic shoe brand. Puma introduced an AI-created influencer with a specific cultural background—an avatar from Morocco—tailored to resonate with sports fans across African and Middle Eastern markets. Why Morocco? Because Puma saw a significant following in these regions and wanted a “spokesperson” who could speak directly to those cultural values and lifestyle aspirations.

And what ends up happening doesn’t stop at official brand campaigns. Communities form organically around these digital figures. People create fan art, build subreddits, launch hashtags, and even craft virtual “meet-and-greet” sessions. While some brand managers fear AI might depersonalize relationships, early adopters find that the opposite is happening. It’s the fan community where the real brand equity builds, providing a sense of belonging that extends well beyond the product itself.

In practical terms, AI influencers can:

• Post and engage with audiences 24/7, crossing time zones effortlessly.

• Speak multiple languages or vernaculars, broadening brand reach in global markets.

• Provide consistent messaging aligned with brand values.

• Continuously learn from user interactions, refining their approach to generate deeper engagement.

The lure is clear: a flexible, data-driven persona that can be “enhanced” with a few tweaks in programming. That can be a game-changer for companies looking to scale quickly without risking the next big scandal or falling victim to influencer burnout.

Not All Is Pleasant in Pleasantville.

Beyond the fandom, there are ethical and social concerns, and different cultures are seeing unique challenges. In South Korea’s K-pop scene, fans expect a certain level of innocence and purity. But does an AI influencer take that a step further, reinforcing unrealistic expectations about perfection, body image, or lifestyle? In the West, digital anthropologists worry about manipulated consumerism—an AI figure that entices you to spend more, buy more, or behave in ways you might not otherwise. Meanwhile, data centers powering these AI “personalities” guzzle electricity, leaving questions about sustainability and long-term scalability.

Then there’s the emotional bond. If an AI influencer is perceived as a friend, a role model, or even a romantic figure (because humans have a knack for projection), how do we handle the psychological fallout if it “ghosts” followers or the brand pulls the plug?

“We have to ask ourselves what it means to be human in a phygital world,” Giles said, referencing that blurred line between our physical and digital realities. “If an AI influencer, all of a sudden gets turned off, and people— hundreds, thousands, millions— have formed a relationship with this AI influencer, then it's gone. Do we get depressed? Do we have a funeral? What are the rituals that we place around that?”

We don’t have the guardrails in place to deal with not just a psychological fallout—the risks of suicide, depression, and anxiety. We also don't have the guardrails to deal with cyber crime and how we can be manipulated by these AIs. And that is a real risk for society.

So How Can a Business Use an AI Influencer Effectively?

• Start with an Exit Strategy: If you ever retire the AI persona, think about how fans might react. Giles cautions that if people build emotional attachments, shutting the influencer down cold turkey can leave them feeling abandoned—much like a show abruptly canceled without a finale. That can sour your brand’s reputation, or worse cause psychological damage to people so tread carefully.

• Explore Cultural “Type” First: Giles points out that cultures fall loosely into “type one” (highly individualistic) or “type two” (collectivist). In the West (type one), personal freedoms and liberties come first, so your AI influencer should highlight uniqueness and personal gain. In places like South Korea or many Nordic nations (type two), a “we-first” approach resonates better—emphasizing teamwork, community values, and shared identity.

• Respect Local Norms and Expectations: If you’re launching an AI influencer in a region where fans expect a squeaky-clean public image (like K-pop circles), perhaps understanding and navigating that cultural reality will make it easier for the public to accept and feel safe with your technological human. Conversely, in Western markets, showing a bit of “edginess” might actually drive more engagement, as fans enjoy personalities that stand out.

• Customize Communication Channels: Different areas have preferred platforms—WhatsApp or Twitter in one region, KakaoTalk in South Korea, Telegram in parts of Eastern Europe. Tailor your AI influencer’s main channel to the local audience’s habits, make sure it speaks the local language and strategize your totemic behaviors based on the platform.

Share

The Analysis 

I’ll admit, by the time I finished my research, I was both intrigued and tempted to delete every social app on my phone. There’s no denying the marketing goldmine these digital darlings seem to represent. But the speed at which this is all going, the threats to jobs, energy and society are just as poignant as the business opportunities. 

Giles pointed out that in the past humans had many decades to adopt and adapt to technology. Today, that’s all out the window. 

But take a moment and digest it all. I had to. Just know that the moment you need to take can also leave you feeling a bit further behind. 

The Cultural Takeaway

You’re more cultured now because you see that AI influencers thrive not just on flashy tech, but on deep-rooted cultural values. In South Korea’s communal context, they satisfy collective ideals. In Western individualistic cultures, they offer curated authenticity without the risk. They’re modern totems, reflecting the timeless human need for shared stories—only now, our icons can text us back. 

Subscribe and Share

I hope you found this newsletter helpful and engaging. Please share with any friends or family you think would be interested and feel free to buy me a coffee by subscribing if you got some use out of it or make a one-time donation.

Follow me on TikTok.

Follow me on Instagram too!

And here is my LinkedIn.

Order a signed copy of my first sci-fi novel The Herd- When Democracy Falls.

And remember,…

When I left the State Department, I said the book I would write out of that experience would be called Gaslit Girl. Because I had never endured an episode where I was so forcefully made to question truths I experienced.

But today that concept seems to be everywhere. The other day, I heard an NPR reporter in Israel acknowledge to host Steve Inskeep that a report they were currently discussing and witnessing was under dispute.

“We stand by our reporting,” she had to affirm, for herself and the network.

As a country, we are learning the hard way how to navigate the experience of being gaslit. Americans have been forcing ourselves to engage in debate but are now learning where to draw the line—refusing to argue about water being wet or the sky being blue.

And this is particularly difficult in the world of journalism, law, government, or any space where you need some sort of shared reality to host broad public thought. Inevitably, when the country is as divided as it is and reality becomes more malleable, not everyone can come along for your ride.

The Collective Destruction of Gaslighting

Because the word “gaslight” doesn’t feel as heavy, people tend to underestimate its impacts on individuals and collective societies.

But researchers have documented the profound harm to individuals, making them doubt themselves, fall into depression, and at worst contemplate self-harm. When done to entire societies, it proves just as destructive.

Dutch researcher Natascha Rietdijk has drawn the connection between post-truth politics and collective gaslighting, showing how political figures use three devastating strategies: introducing counternarratives to confuse, discrediting critics to isolate, and denying plain facts to disorient. These tactics both spread false beliefs and systematically erode our trust in our own capacity to distinguish truth from fiction. I feel it personally, as some days I find myself repeatedly fact-checking the same line of a story.

And history bears witness to this destruction. One of the most infamous cases is Stalin’s regime. Historians, such as Anne Applebaum, note that Stalin didn’t just lie to people, his regime created an environment where citizens could no longer trust their own perceptions. And even those who did trust their own judgement, suppressed it out of fear for a “knock on the door.”

But Black Americans will tell you we don’t need to go all the way to Russia to find our historical case studies on this. For generations, gaslighting convinced entire communities to doubt what they witnessed with their own eyes—violence dismissed as imagination, injustice reframed as personal failing.

Share

Using Fiction to Finish the Book

When I first wrote my book proposal for Gaslit Girl, it was meant to be nonfiction, and I had no idea how I was going to make the structure of the narrative work. It wasn't until I embraced fiction as a tool of description that I made it to 81,000 words.

Similar to how Octavia Butler used science fiction to describe complex experiences that Black women carry—such as extreme empathy, a kryptonite that makes us vulnerable to a savage society—I found it easier to explore the detrimental and complex internal battle that comes with gaslighting through fiction. Which I'm excited to eventually release as book two in my science fiction trilogy The Herd.

Pre-Order a Signed Copy!

You Are Well

But I say all this to say, you are not crazy. You have seen what you have seen and heard what you have heard. The sky is blue and water is wet.

As both a former diplomat and current journalist, I am intimately acquainted with the concept of being gaslit and fighting to make sure truth is set free. These days we may need to remind ourselves to keep our feet on the ground more than we did in the past.

The truth doesn’t change just because someone with power—whether that's your boss or a politician—says it does. Your reality doesn’t become less real because someone refuses to acknowledge it.

Sure, in some cases you may need to have your perspective broadened. But at other times, you may need the reminder that the ground is still solid beneath your feet.

Subscribe and Share

Subscribe now

I hope you found this newsletter helpful and engaging. Please share with any friends or family you think would be interested and feel free to buy me a coffee by subscribing if you got some use out of it or make a one-time donation.

Follow me on Instagram too!

And here is my LinkedIn.

Order a signed copy of my first sci-fi novel The Herd- When Democracy Falls.

And remember,…

It had been a while since a political figure had yelled at me, so I was genuinely taken aback when, one month into my new job, my phone rang with fury on the other end. But here’s the thing about the news business, this is par for the course. Every time you hit publish, you brace for impact.

And I get it. People want answers. Why did you choose that angle? Why only interview three people instead of ten? Why didn’t you include this crucial detail I think you missed? These aren’t unreasonable questions. In fact, they’re exactly the questions I want to address today, because there’s real logic to how stories come together. It’s not the shadowy conspiracy some imagine—it’s something far more human and constrained.

The Sacred Trinity of Storytelling

First: Know Your People

Every newsroom has its tribe. The Wall Street Journal speaks to the deal-makers and market-watchers. Politico feeds the political junkies their daily fix of insider baseball. Slate serves up smart takes for urban millennials sipping their second oat milk latte. Understanding your audience isn’t just strategy—it’s everything. It’s your North Star, your compass, your reason for being. (This is something I have written about before.)

The way you frame a story, the voices you choose to amplify, even the platforms where you share your work, all of it flows from this fundamental question: Who are you serving, and what do they need to know?

Second: The Brutal Mathematics of Space and Time

Here’s the reality that keeps me up at night: The average web story gets 700-1200 words to shed light on a complicated issue. A radio feature—even a "long" one—gets four minutes to tell a story that might span decades.

Four. Minutes.

I’ve become a master synthesizer by necessity, distilling 60 pages of notes into three pages of story. Hours of raw, emotional interviews compressed into four minutes of radio that somehow still captures the human heart of it all. The cutting is painful. Every quote left on the floor feels like a small betrayal. But this is the art, finding the essential truth in the avalanche of information.

Third: The Cold Equations of Resources and Impact

Newsrooms today are leaner, hungrier, more selective than ever. I cover Montgomery County, Prince George’s County, and Maryland state government for WAMU. That’s roughly two million people across hundreds of potential stories every single day. This is not Pokemon, we can’t catch them all.

So we choose. How many people will this story impact? For how long? Will it change how you live your daily life? These aren’t perfect metrics, but they’re honest ones. We’re trying to ensure the most important stories don’t slip through the cracks for the people counting on us.

Share

A Great Time to Be Back

When you understand these constraints, you begin to grasp what a big deal it is every time a news organization chooses to publish a story, especially the hard ones. Especially the ones that make powerful people reach for their phones in anger.

The real, visceral fear that comes with accountability journalism. The knowledge that somewhere, someone is about to get very, very upset with you.

And when I think about the pressure newsrooms are under right now, when I consider the stories that have emerged just this month—coverage of the Epstein files, immigrants imprisoned in El Salvador, local elections that will reshape communities, starvation in Gaza—I think about the people brave enough to hit publish anyway. Knowing they might get sued. Knowing they'll be berated. Knowing that readers will always want more context, more voices, more everything than space and time allow.

I am proud of them. Proud of the work. Proud of the bravery. Proud of them meeting this moment when meeting the moment has never been harder.

Media is far from perfect. We make mistakes. We miss things. We're human, and our humanity shows in our work. But damn, there are some people out there doing extraordinary work under extraordinary pressure.

One month back in, and I'm reminded why this matters. Why every story matters. Why every angry phone call, every difficult conversation, every late night spent getting the details right—it all adds up to something larger than ourselves.

I'm glad to be back.

Check out my dance for the real ones.

Leave a comment

Subscribe and Share

Subscribe now

I hope you found this newsletter helpful and engaging. Please share with any friends or family you think would be interested and feel free to buy me a coffee by subscribing if you got some use out of it or make a one-time donation.

Follow me on Instagram too!

And here is my LinkedIn.

Order a signed copy of my sci-fi novel The Herd- When Democracy Falls.

And remember,…